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• A Case of shell shock

  Audio

  George Lee recounts a story of a Sergeant who after being caught in a salvo on patrol came back “absolutely useless” and unable to function. He talks about the men who, after realising his condition, concealed it from the commander – because even at that late stage of the war there was little sympathy for those suffering from shell shock.

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• Newcomer to the trenches

  Audio

  New Zealander George Lee was born in Canada and served in World War I with the British Army. He was shipped to the trenches near Antwerp in April 1918. In this excerpt from an hour-long radio programme about his war experiences, he gives a vivid account of his first experience of being under fire. He contrasts his own visceral reaction of terror with that of a hardened comrade who had already been in the trenches for four years, and for whom such events had become commonplace.

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• Blighty wounds and deserters

  Audio

  George Lee was among the later reinforcements to join the war, arriving in the trenches near Antwerp in April 1918. By this time, conditions at the front line were intolerable. There were only two ways out; death or injury. In this excerpt, Lee remembers the different methods men employed to be invalided out of the trenches.

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• A louse named Charlie

  Audio

  Many aspects of trench life were unpleasant – the mud and squalor, the monotony and drudgery, the abysmal diet, malnutrition and dysentery, the constant threat of death from enemy fire, and to top it off the discomfort – lice. The troops were crawling with them, almost to a man. In this excerpt from a 1981 radio documentary, George Lee recalls advice he got from a ‘lousy’ trench mate named Jack Saunders.

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